Week beginning 16 November 2020
Monday November 16th. A mild day with a bit of a south west wind blowing this morning. No rods booked this week or next for that matter which is perhaps just as well as the gauge was reading 3’4” this morning and dirty. On the websites tonight there was nothing reported, the water height along with the lack of fish, mix in a touch of covid and travel restrictions and that is effectively the end of the season. Pulled a couple of boats off today as there is a fair bit of rain in the forecast and the boats are easier to deal with onshore than being sunk when a log drags a chain. No rats, mink or moles but strangely one of my traps has disappeared, there were three in a line unmarked so no one would see them and one has gone, maybe a badger or a fox has taken the trap with a mole in it, I have heard that even foxes won’t eat moles so it’s a mystery.
Tuesday 17th November. It was blowing a hoolie this morning and I was quiet pleased not to be fishing, I felt a bit sorry for Tam over at South Wark who was bobbing about the Temple but at least he had the wind behind him and he was sheltered a bit with the willows. Got the wooden boat off and put away, took mink trap away as it’ll soon be under water and forgot to check mole traps, I’ll put them on my to do list. One 5lb seatrout reported on the websites from Fairnilee.
Wednesday 18th November. A very mild morning but it was also blowing a hoolie, all the top gauges rising so it’ll be big and broon tomorrow. Got the wooden benches inside to clean them up and oil them when dry, sneaked over the border in these covid times to deliver the oars that need repaired to boat builder in Norham, I didn’t meet anyone so stayed out of trouble. Lots of kelts showing this morning so they will get washed down river a bit sooner than they thought, but they can’t go out to sea until they have changed back to silver and they can handle salt water again (I’m told). The wind is to change into the north tomorrow with a big drop in temperature with snow on the tops.
Thursday 19th November. A nice dry sunny morning, the gauge reading 4’0” and dirty 44 degrees. Much colder today with a north light wind. Found that the boat trailer with the wooden boat still on it has a flat so it was jack out of car and tyre off to tyre fixing shop, a trip to Kelso to get wood stain varnish and a tin of teak oil for benches after they have been power washed and dried. No mole but it has been through trap. Good news is last night Rob a neighbour got a fox in the field past the top of the Temple bad news is there was three of them so two still to get, clever things these night vision scope attachments, you can sit there in pitch dark but can see the whole area on the screen. On the fishing front nothing happening, one fish caught away upstream somewhere.
Friday 20th November. A cold morning and grey, 2’7” and 42 degrees with a grey colour to it. Jane produced a power washer which made cleaning the bench a lot easier than wetting and scraping with a knife. The bench is in memory of “Distillery Dave “and his long suffering wife Margaret who were a lovely couple who fished the Lees for many years. He got the nickname partly due to his liking of a dram or two, I’ll just clean my teeth was his morning saying, the other reason was there were three rods called Dave, one got Distillery, one got bad back Dave and the other was young Dave who I presume is still alive. His great friend Terry Harper put the bench in place, actually Terry bought the bench, I put in the concrete pad and made the steps down to it but Terry sits on it for long periods keeping up the tradition of cleaning the teeth. If you have read this far you will have realised we didn’t fish today and therefore caught nowt, I did see one of the Wark boats out this morning but they blanked. Two fish reported, one at Fairnilee and the other at Traquair.
Saturday 21st November. 2’8” and 43 degrees but clean. So we’re on 425 can’t see us making the 500 this year, this time last year we were on 292 and in 2011 we were on 878 with 79 for November.
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